Unsettled & Shaken

I've never doubted the power of the Lord. Never questioned His wisdom or His authority. Even as an unbeliever, I knew that God WAS; that He rightfully maintained absolute control over all His creation with infinite power.

My questioning has always been about His love for me. My doubting & struggles continue even to this day: "Lord, I know You have overwhelming kindness & love for Your people... But am I one of Yours?"

There's so much error in that line of thinking. I know. I've fought against it for so many years.

Walking through my own experiences of the tornado in April challenged my faith more deeply than it's been hit in a long time. Trying to grasp that it was, indeed, God's GOOD & perfect will for the Tittles to lose Rob, Tori, & Rebekah?... Understanding in a way I never have before ~ as our family rode out the deafening tornado in a shaking van inside a rattling garage ~  that God has NO obligation to hold any of us out of the path of such physical destruction; that He has never promised that He wouldn't take our very dearest things from us & leave us to wrestle with that?

My puny faith was as ripped apart as the houses in the tornado's path.

I know that God has ordained this valley for me, this place of wrestling with Him. This place of having my anemic theology plowed up & exposed.

And God has already met me so perfectly, answering me in my spirit in the voice that can only be His, directing me in my darkest hours to Scripture & sermons that have brought answers and comfort,  peace and hope.

I wrestle with other things as well: praying so hard for the Lord to work in ways that seem so right that they MUST be the best outcome. If God would answer my prayers in the way I'm praying, wouldn't He get so much honor & glory? Wouldn't His name be glorified as a watching world sees the changes that are made?

Again, so much error. So much to contend with. I'm beyond grateful for God's patience with me, that He continues to listen & provide His presence & comfort as I process through my unbelief.

I read something so helpful today that has given me much pause. So much here to reflect on. It's long, but it's worth your read. It's from Henry Melvill, a reflection found in Spurgeon's The Treasury of David, on Psalm 78:18.

"We know that, although God cannot be tempted with evil, He may justly be said to be tempted, whensoever men, by being dissatisfied with His dealings, virtually ask that He will alter those dealings, and proceed in a way more congenial with their feelings. If you reflect a little, you can hardly fail to perceive, that in a very strict sense, this and the like may be said to be a tempting of God.


"Suppose a man to be discontended with the appointments of Providence; suppose him to murmur and repine at what the Almighty allots him to do or to bear: is he not charged with provoking God to change his purposes? And what is this if it be not 'tempting' God-a striving to induce Him to swerve from His plans, though every one of those plans has been settled by infinite wisdom?


"Or, again, if any one of us, notwithstanding multiplied proofs of the Divine lovingkindness, doubt or question whether God do indeed love him; of what is he guilty, if not of tempting the Lord, seeing that he solicits God to give additional evidence, as though there were deficiency, and challenges Him to fresh demonstrations of what He has already abundantly displayed? This would be called "tempting" amongst men. If a child were to show by his actions that he doubted or disbelieved the affection of his parents, he would be considered as thereby striving to extort from them fresh proofs of that affection, though they had already done as much as either in justice or in wisdom they ought to have done; this would be a clear tempting of them, and that too in the ordinary sense of the term.


"In short, unbelief of every kind and degree may be said to be a tempting of God; for not to believe on the evidence which He has seen fit to give, is to tempt Him to give more than He has already given-offering our possible assent, if proof were increased, as an inducement to Him to go beyond what His wisdom has prescribed.


"You cannot distrust God and not accuse Him of a want either of power or of goodness; you cannot repine-no, not even in thought-without virtually telling Him that His plans are not the best, nor His dispensations the wisest, which might have been appointed in respect of yourselves. So that your fear, or your despondency, or your anxiety in circumstances of perplexity, or of peril, is nothing less than a call upon God to depart from His fixed course-a suspicion, or rather an assertion, that He might proceed in a manner more worthy of Himself, and therefore a challenge to Him to alter His dealings, if He would prove that He possesses the attributes which He claims.


"You may not intend thus to accuse, or provoke God, whenever you murmur; but your murmuring does all this, and cannot fail to do it. You cannot be dissatisfied, without virtually saying that God might order things better; you cannot say that He might order things better, without virtually demanding that He change His course of acting, and give other proofs of His infinite perfections. And thus you tempt Him, tempt Him even as did the Israelites in the wilderness."


How convicted I was as I read this. How instructed, as well, and how thankful that God brought this to me to shed even more light on my distrust and unbelief. May God be pleased and honored as I continue to labor to fully believe Him with all my heart.

Wrestling

I must stop seeking God's approval on my actions.  I am looking for His gold sticker on my emotions, thoughts, deeds... my works. 

If I can gain His approval, I can also garner much more of His disapproval on all that I fail in.

I must, by faith and trust and belief, look only to the finished work of my Savior, pull tighter around my pitiful body the clothing of righteousness that my Lord chose to cover me in, the clothing that is His and that remains approved in God's eyes.

Help me, my Jehovah-Shalom, to honor and glorify You; to seek Your favor where You have provided it for me: in the death of my Redeemer, the Lord Jesus Christ, and in His righteousness alone.  Oh, that I would have victory in this today, settled once and for all!